Corporate Linux and the Community?

namelessByChoice asks: "I'm a software developer in a rather large hardware company. We have recently begun using Linux as the OS of choice for in house hardware test equipment. Now since Linux is "free" we don't have to pay licensing fees to anyone, but as a moral obligation we would like to contribute in some way. I'm looking for suggestions on the best way to do this."

"So far we've come up with a few ideas.

• 1. Donate money to FSF.
• 2. Arrange a Licensing scheme with Linux distributor and use their distribution.
• 3. Make an announcement to the media "So and so chooses Linux for mission critical applications".
• 4. Open Source any thing that is not proprietary. By proprietary I mean things that are considered corporate secrets, such as the software that runs the equipment. Anything generic like kernel modifications, drivers, libraries could certainly be released."